From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
LTU Lufttransport-Unternehmen GmbH was an
airline based in Düsseldorf, Germany.[1] The
parent company of LTU is Air Berlin. The initials stand for the German phrase
LuftTransport-Unternehmen
("air transport enterprise"). It operated scheduled services on
medium and long-haul routes, as well as charter services. Its main
bases were Düsseldorf International
Airport and Munich
International Airport. In November 2007 LTU opened the third
base Berlin-Tegel International Airport.[2] LTU
finally merged with Air
Berlin on 1 May 2009.
History
LTU was established in May 1955 as Lufttransport
Union and started operations in Frankfurt. It adopted its
present name in 1956 when it operated charter flights. LTU has been
headquartered in Düsseldorf since 1961.[3]
LTU ran very popular USA routes from its Düsseldorf hub and
directly competed on some of them with Lufthansa, Germany's flag carrier. LTU did
run well frequented services from Düsseldorf to Beijing, Chengdu and Shanghai but they were dropped.
The airline was owned (at March 2007) by Intro
Verwaltungsgesellschaft (55%) and Marbach Beteiligung und
Consulting (45%) and has 2,892 employees.[2]
In March 2007, Air
Berlin took over LTU International, creating the fourth largest
airline group in Europe in
terms of traffic. Between them, the airlines carried 22.1 million
passengers in 2006. The takeover was driven by the prospect of
branching into long-haul operations and the chance to establish a
stronger presence at Düsseldorf International
Airport. LTU will retain its name on its leisure routes but
routes to the United
States and China will be
branded by Air Berlin.
[1]
On 1 May 2007, LTU operated the first Arctic & North Pole
Sightseeing Flight from continental Europe in aviation history for
their charter customer Deutsche Polarflug. The
flight took 12h55m and the aircraft, an A330-200 took a group of
283 passengers from Düsseldorf via Norway, Svalbard, The North Pole,
Eastern Greenland and Iceland back to Düsseldorf.
LTU opened a third long-haul base (to add to Düsseldorf and Munich) at Berlin-Tegel International Airport in
October 2007 when it based a single Airbus A330-200 there to launch flights to
Bangkok, Punta Cana and Varadero.[4]
Air Berlin
announced in 2008 that the trademark LTU will no longer be
used. All flights are now named Air Berlin.[5]
Destinations
Since May 1, 2009, all flights have Air Berlin flight numbers and crew. The LTU
planes are used throughout Air Berlin's network. See here for the
full list of Air Berlin destinations.
Additionally, LTU offered some dedicated seasonal sightseeing
flights (without landing) around the North Pole (see Deutsche Polarflug), all flights are now flown
by Air Berlin flight
numbers and crew.
Fleet
The average age of the LTU International fleet was 8.2
years.
All aircraft are painted in Air Berlin colors and fly for Air Berlin.
References
External
links
| Members of the International Air
Transport Association |
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Asia-Pacific regional
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China and North Asia
regional office |
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Latin America and the
Caribbean regional office |
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Middle East and North Africa
regional office |
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North America regional
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Russia and the CIS regional
office |
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